Biography of Shawn Mendes
Shawn Mendes is a Canadian singer, songwriter, actor, and model. Sean gained recognition with the hits “Stitches”, “Treat You Better” and “There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back”.
Canadian singer Shawn Mendes
Childhood and family
Shawn Peter Raul Mendes was born on August 8, 1998 in Toronto, Canada’s largest city. His mother, Englishwoman Karen Mendes (Reyment), works as a real estate agent. Sean’s father, the Portuguese Manuel Mendez, owns a business selling goods for bars and restaurants. Sean has a younger sister named Alia.
Shawn Mendes family
During his school years, Mendes was an active child, playing ice hockey and football. In addition to his passion for sports, Sean was interested in music, sang in the school choir and attended acting classes. At some point in his life, Sean decided that he wanted to devote his life to cinema.
“I wanted to be an actor, I really, really wanted to. I even went to the casting of the Disney channel, but I got nervous in front of the cameras and forgot the text, ”says Sean.
Thoughts about an acting career were replaced by active actions in the musical field. “At the age of 13, I became obsessed with music,” the singer recalls. The teenager taught himself how to play the guitar through YouTube tutorial videos, and soon began posting covers of famous songs.
Shawn Mendes as a child
Mendez’s first steps were very confident and promising. The version of Justin Bieber’s “As Long As You Love Me”, posted by Sean on the Vine app, earned 10,000 likes and the same number of subscribers the very next day.
Music
Thanks to six-second clips of musical content, the young singer achieved wild popularity in a matter of months. By mid-2014, he became the third most popular musician on the Vine video hosting. Soon Mendes got an agent, thanks to which the musician signed a contract with Island Records. Bon Jovi, The Killers, Lady Sovereign, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez and other famous artists collaborate with this record company.
Shawn Mendes height – 185 cm
The artist’s debut single “Life of the Party” blew up the charts, and Sean became the youngest singer to debut immediately in the top 25 of the US Billboard Hot 100.
After that, Mendes’ life was filled with events that are standard for any musician – concerts, tours, rehearsals. The listeners, especially the young audience, adored Sean and warmly accepted his debut album Handwritten (2015), filled with energetic and soulful music in the style of pop and pop folk.
In an interview, Sean said that John Mayer, Ed Sheeran and Justin Timberlake, as well as Led Zeppelin and a number of country and reggae artists, whom his parents adore, had a huge influence on his work.
– I want to create anthems for people and important moments in their lives … And I don’t want to write songs that would sound for several months, and then go away forever.
A good example of such an anthem was the single “Stitches”, which entered the top ten songs of the year in the United States and since then has been playing daily on all radio stations around the world.
A big step for the high school singer was touring North America with Taylor Swift and recording the soundtrack for the Disney Channel musical The Heirs. In his popularity, Sean could compete with another young artist, Justin Bieber. This was evidenced by all kinds of polls and ratings of reputable publications Forbes and The Times, which more than once included Mendes in the lists of the 30 most influential teenagers in the world. In June 2016, Mendes graduated from high school and was finally able to devote his full time to his career. Sean’s success could only be surprised: his second album “Illuminate”, presented on September 23, 2016, went platinum, and the single “Treat You Better” sounded from every iron. Sean’s world tour, which he embarked on in April 2017, sold out like hot cakes. The musician himself rested on the laurels of the artist, whose three songs took 1st place on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart – by the way, this is an unprecedented case in more than 50 years of the chart’s existence.
In May 2018, Mendes released his third album, Shawn Mendes, with a five-song pop track list with elements of pop rock, blues, and R&B. The album was met with positive reviews and sold particularly well in the singer’s home country. To promote the album in 2019, Mendes embarked on a world tour of the same name, and has also been active at music festivals across Europe, North and South America. The teenager was even lucky enough to sing at a concert in honor of the 92nd birthday of Queen Elizabeth II.
In December 2018, the singer released the EP “The Album (Remixes)”. The mini-album included remixes of his songs “Where Were You in the Morning?” with DJ Kaytranada, “Why” with American singer Leon Bridges and “Youth” with Canadian artist Jessie Reyes.
Actor career
In 2013, one of the heroes of the animated film “Superteam” about brave football players and true love spoke in the voice of Shawn Mendes. Two years later, Sean tried himself as an actor, starring in one of the episodes of the 3rd season of the post-apocalyptic series 100.
Shawn Mendes in The 100
Mendes also appeared in a documentary filmed by YouTube star Casey Neistat. The short project, part of the Artist Spotlight Stories series, explores Mendez’s behind-the-scenes life during one of his tours.
Fashion
In 2016, Shawn Mendes signed a contract with the Wilhelmina Models modeling agency, which cooperates with such stars as Nicki Minaj, Demi Lovato, Nick Jonas, Leona Lewis and others.
The musician participates in fashion shows, and is also the face of the Emporio Armani Fall-Winter 2018-2019 watch collection and the face of the Calvin Klein brand and its #MyCalvins lingerie collection.
Shawn Mendes personal life
Shawn Mendes spoke openly about his struggles with anxiety in the song “In My Blood” from his third studio album. The artist said that he was undergoing treatment and worked with a psychotherapist.
There are a lot of rumors about Mendes’ sexual orientation, which the artist chopped off in one of his last interviews: “Firstly, I’m not gay. Second, my orientation doesn’t matter. The focus should be on my music, not my sexuality.”
Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello
Fans are concerned that Sean hasn’t been in a serious relationship yet. He was credited with novels with actress Hailee Steinfeld, Cuban-American singer Camila Cabello, Hailey Baldwin (the youngest daughter of actor Stephen Baldwin and current wife of Justin Bieber), but the information was not confirmed.
Shawn Mendes and Hailey Baldwin
Sean told Variety, “I’m currently not dating anyone, but it’s not because I don’t have the time. I don’t know if I would date anyone if I stayed in my hometown. I’ve never experienced strong feelings, but I’m not chasing them.” The singer denies rumors about homosexuality: “I’m not gay. In general, orientation does not matter.
Shawn Mendes tattoo
However, the affair with Camila Cabello still turned out to be true – being first close friends, they started dating in 2019, but broke up in November 2024.
Shawn Mendes is actively involved in charity work. He partners with Pencils of Promise, a non-profit organization that builds schools and helps improve the quality of education in developing countries. In particular, the guy raised more than $25,000 to build a school in Ghana. In September 2017, together with the American Red Cross, Mendez founded the Mexico Earthquake Relief Fund with a donation of $100,000.
Shawn Mendes now
It is known that Shawn Mendes will appear in the musical comedy “Summer of Love” by Canadian director Ivan Reitman, the creator of the films “Twins” (1988) and “Junior” (1994) with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. Summer of Love is Reitman’s first musical and Mendes’ first major role.